According to Urban Dictionary, “senioritis” is a crippling disease that strikes high school seniors. Symptoms include, laziness, an over-excessive wearing of track pants, old athletic shirts, sweatpants, and sweatshirts, a lack of studying, repeated absences, and a generally dismissive attitude towards school.
The only known cure is the threat of colleges rescinding their offers.
Senioritis happens when high school seniors approach the finish line of their high school career. College applications are submitted, acceptance letters come in the mail, and graduation is just around the corner.
According to College Board, Seniors not only at New Trier, but across the country have been experiencing this “crippling disease” just a few days after the start of second semester. Homework, studying for tests or reviewing class material is no longer a senior’s first priority. New Trier seniors should take into consideration that slacking off during second semester or after being accepted to college may jeopardize their future plans. Every year, colleges rescind offers of admission, put students on academic probation or alter financial aid packages as a result of “senioritis.”
“Yeah, we’re second semester seniors. We don’t want to do any work. We are all ready and want to leave. Yet in reality, we have AP classes that we have to pass and we have to get good grades second semester to prevent getting denied admissions from colleges we were already accepted too,” said New Trier senior, Francesca Gambacorta.
According to last year’s graduates, some colleges might only see grades up through the end of junior year or the first half of senior year and will often make a decision based on those grades, but they will still want to see the final grades after graduation.
College admission officers are interested in academic commitment; therefore, they expect students to maintain previous levels of academic success.
According to Michael O’Connor, a post high-school counselor at New Trier, there are different degrees of actions a college will take, often in the form of a letter, to warn students about poor second semester grades.
For colleges to even send out a warning letter, there must be a pattern in the decline of grades, not a random incident.
Before rescinding an individual, colleges are more likely to request an in-person interview with the student so they can explain the grade drop, or have them write the admissions office a letter.
While being rescinded from a college is rare, it does happen. According to an article in The New York Times, University of Colorado Boulder rescinded admission for 45 of its accepted students, 10 of which had already attended freshman orientation and selected classes. University of Michigan sent out three different letters to its incoming freshmen with poor final grades: 62 issuing gentle warnings, 180 requesting an explanation and nine revoking admission.
In order to maintain focus, some seniors try to maintain a challenging course load, for example, taking a few AP courses. Some even commit to an internship, which helps them make informed, wise decisions about their education and career goals.
“I didn’t do homework at all second semester, but looking back at it now, you have to start treating high school as if it were college to mentally prepare yourself to take that next step,” said 2012 grad Danny Holtzer.
One of the New Trier teachers who has noticed this epidemic spread throughout his senior classes is Business Management teacher, Kevin Kansler, who has taught seniors all of his seven years at New Trier. He explained that the amount and severity of senioritis varies, but there is an outbreak each year.
“I think one way to deal with it is to acknowledge it– to articulate to students that you know where they are coming from and can relate, but nonetheless there are objectives and goals that need to be met. I save some of my more interesting units for the second semester so that way when the workload ramps up, they don’t notice the escalation as much,” said Kansler.
New Trier pre-calculus teacher, Cindy Cardoza, along with the math department, decided to enforce a midterm in order to give seniors an incentive to be focused, at least through third quarter. Cardoza believes that it’s important for teachers to talk to their students, relate, and try to keep them on track as graduation approaches.
Kansler uses an analogy with his students. He explains to seniors that they are training for a marathon for the past 11.5 months and right before they are about to run the marathon they start walking during the final stretch.
“Next year when the marathon comes, I think it’s important that you are still in good shape to run that race. Behaviors like missing class, slacking or not properly preparing for class are not habits you want to start off next year with,” said Kansler.
According to senior advisors, Chris Pearson and Cindee Scott, the senior class is doing very well and they haven’t noticed any problems so far involving colleges revoking students’ admission. But with a aemester to go, it’s still early to predict what might happen.